Lorentzen‘s Comics obviously takes Cathy Berberian‘s Stripsody as a point of departure in its use of extended vocal techniques to convey the loopy humor of comic strips, but his work is far more elaborate. It consists of four dramatic realizations taken from comic strips and children’s literature, scored for narrator, orchestra, and a motley crowd of 260 extras whose main functions are to shriek in terror and imitate animals and space aliens. Do not be deceived by the titles; some of these movements have next to nothing, or nothing, to do with their ostensible subject matter. Witness these lines spoken by the heroine of Madeline in Paris: “Good Lord! What a bloodbath! This must be Professor Charon, with a bullet through his head! … Must discover what connection there is between Professor Charon and the giant bat-like monster.” The music is extremely inventive and effective as illustration, but until the finale of Flash Gordon, where it really takes off, it doesn’t have the substance of Jersild‘s Alice. Actor Thomas Eje turns in a virtuoso performance as the narrator, deploying an astonishing arsenal of mouth sounds and varied voices. This is the kind of CD that may not leap out as a “must-have,” but it demonstrates that modern music can be laugh-out-loud funny, particularly in performances as skilled and expertly produced as these.